The Dangers of Reason

The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing about

Blaise Pascal Cited in Mystical Hours                       

Here is a reflection by Br. Teasdale and what the heart knows or what the heart perceives: 

“Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French philosopher and mathematician who struck a fine balance between his head and his heart. His intellectual achievements were substantial but he did not neglect the intuitive, emotional dimensions of experience. The inner reality of the heart’s knowledge is precious beyond telling, and Pascal was intimately familiar with it.

To be aware of the heart’s reasons, to honor its knowing, is to be true to yourself in a positive sense. What the heart sees, intuits, and knows through its affective capacity is more significant that what we can know through reason. Reason is not in touch with the heart’s concerns: love, compassion, kindness, mercy, faith, union with the divine. 

By attending to them, we become more human and more divine.”

I find that it borders on the tragic that we do not pay more reverent attention to our most intimate thoughts and feelings that present themselves to us through our intuition, dreams, our psychic abilities and other such clairvoyant qualities of mind and heart… 

If, for no other purpose than getting the whole picture, the goal of being fully human requires that we learn how to listen; learn how to stop or at least relax the chattering of our minds and the incessant and compelling needs of our egos so that we can, in a fleeting minute, find a way to tune into our deeper messages– messages from our true sources of inspiration, or to the voice of God within us all…

As Pascal and Teasdale remind us, the capacity of reason, while among the highest gifts that determine our humanity and evolutionary status, can become cold, harsh, lifeless, and more- loveless in its applications. 

We just have to turn to the development of weapons of mass destruction, to the creation of toxic chemicals, to the insistence on capital punishment, and other cultural acceptable creations and discoveries to know that we humans can be conveniently and persuasively robotic with our feelings- allowing ourselves to be entirely heartless in our justifications of safety, progress, and certainly in the quest for profits! 

Reason can hollow us out; it can make us into fleshy automatons who regard for one’s health and well being, for our need for sleep, balance, nutrition, and relationships can all be given short shrift; and becomes ignored so that one can attain the elusive and costly prizes of success or rational and societally condoned accomplishments.

Without going to an opposing default romantic and poetic approach, as enticing and as aspirational as that can be, If we are to become fully human, and to be fully alive and in touch with our whole selves, then it is vital that we learn how to trust, accept, and even revere our own sense of what is good, right, and true- if not, then we risk our dehumanization.